An Artist's Statement

Art is bias. Its intrinsic humanity can never fully exist outside of its creator. We may share it but the individuality of the Artist restricts its holistic translation to others.

Art has been called a reflection of humanity. I find that too broad. A reflection assumes an angle of incidence in, equaling an angle of incidence, out. That is impossible to the degree it can only be false. False that it doesn’t adequately account for the perspective and influences of the viewer. I can no more inhabit a physical space occupied by another than I can inhabit their emotional space simultaneously.

Appreciation for technical mastery of a form gives us an Artist safe emotional haven. It is a culturally manufactured place we may join to satisfy our need to belong and confirm tribe and stature. But wherein tribe imparts soul it cannot impart spirit and it is the spirit leaching out through corporal restraints that stammers and screams and claws into Art.

No, Art is bias and should be because Art is the experience through a periscope; a very narrow creation of the Artist’s incidence and reflection. One may find themselves in agreement or impassioned response but Art cannot completely expand beyond the capacity of Artist voice. It is as a parent strives for the betterment of a child only to relinquish that bond, to the world, never with any certainty what was retained or rejected. It is when honest a melancholy affair. For the viewer it is plumbing a humanity not their own. Undoubtedly some merit resides there.

My Art is a reflection of the world as it intimately shaped me and the limits of my ability to command a medium to translate that experience beneficial to strangers. My effectiveness is at the behest of a stranger’s aesthetic literacy.

Art is bias because bias demands we reflect upon our angle of incidence. It demands we reflect upon our reflection. It makes us question where do we stand in relation to its creator and the others that stand vying for a view of the same. Art is the bias of an inter-racial kiss, fraught with intrigue and outrage and promise and expectation and hope and sex to the viewer and yet, to the lovers, it is a singularly solitary attempt to affirm each ones existence.

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Michael NJ Wright, Filmmaker, Lecturer, Screenwriter and self professed "Armchair Historian," is irrepressibly drawn to the stories within the story of our historical record. His column CHICAGO ECHOES is what he calls the 'soft tissue' beneath hard rudimentary facts and dates. "Somehow we have decoupled the seminal events of our times from the emotion of the time and people who performed them. It has the effect of canonizing people and distancing us from the human condition. History is messy, dramatic, incomplete, inconclusive, embarrassing and often inconvenient. That's pretty sexy." Wright has lectured for the AFI, University of Illinois, Facets Multi-Media and is Adjunct Cinematography Faculty at the Ai/Chicago. He is a Telly winner for his Eco-Show LITTLE GREEN MEN and an Emmy winner for his work on the NBC 2009 CHICAGO MARATHON. Married and a father he lives in Hyde Park. Contact Michael at mwright@wbphotoplay.com.